Missed opportunity..

19 December 2011: For similar and different reasons, the Congress and BJP poll campaigns in Uttar Pradesh are getting bogged down and being easily overtaken by those of the Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party. Whilst winning UP is critical for Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav, it is no less important for the Congress and BJP.

The future of UPA-2 and Rahul Gandhi's anticipated prime-ministership depends on the Congress poll performance in Uttar Pradesh. Party insiders say that if the Congress does well in the state, Rahul Gandhi may agree to replace Manmohan Singh. The figure of "wellness" for the Congress which now has twenty-two of the UP assembly's four-hundred-and-three seats is over one hundred.
The BJP does not have a matching stake in Uttar Pradesh. UP with eighty Lok Sabha seats is among the most important states for general elections. If a national party does well in UP, its chances of forming a Central government increases. To that extent, the state is invaluable for the BJP as well.
Of course, neither the Congress nor the BJP with present and past governments in the Centre have done well in UP, partly contributing to weak their coalition regimes. But the way Rahul Gandhi has staked his future prime-ministership on UP, the BJP does not have a corresponding aspirant.
And yet, neither the Congress nor the BJP can minimize UP's electoral importance. And neither has got its act together in the state. Since the UP polls determine the future of both Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav, it is a do-or-die campaign for them. But similar resolve is not being displayed by the BJP or the Congress.
To be sure, Rahul Gandhi is front-paged every other day making hard-hitting speeches in Uttar Pradesh. With Rahul Gandhi's campaign, it is difficult to determine how much is real and much clever imaging-making by hired professionals. He has not been particularly successful on the campaign trail recently. He got busted in Nitish Kumar's Bihar.
But taking Rahul Gandhi's campaign at face value, he is far ahead of the Congress organization in the state. He reminds you of an impetuous tank commander in enemy territory who has left the foot infantry far behind and turns back to catch up.
"When I am in UP, things go well," the press reported him as saying at a Congress campaign committee meeting in Delhi. "When I return, everything falls silent. This is simply not going to work. It is not acceptable. Go and work on the ground." Congress insiders confirm things are not looking good for the party in the state.
Quite apart from UPA-2's baggage of corruption and non-performance that Rahul Gandhi has to lug around, he faces a curious absence of political instinct in the party to give him requisite backing. It appears coalition politics and the easy life in Delhi have killed the Congress's drive to go alone. And specific to UP, the Congress party is thin on the ground.
In some ways, the BJP faces a similar dilemma in Uttar Pradesh. But it has special problems of its own. The BJP feels the absence of A.B.Vajpayee direly. While health issues long ago forced Vajpayee out of hard campaigning, the BJP can't even project him in a meaningful way. Out of all the BJP leaders, he was most concerned about the party's eroding base in UP. He correctly assessed that if the BJP had to have strong numbers in the Lok Sabha, Uttar Pradesh had to be won back.
But whereas the Congress has Rahul Gandhi to do battle in UP, however misguidedly, the BJP central leadership has been conspicuously absent in the state, at least in terms of giving the poll campaign vision and direction. Arun Jaitley who is most active in Bihar or Gujarat or the northern states as a political strategist is missing in UP. Nor is the other prime-ministerial candidate, Sushma Swaraj.
Possibly, it has something to do with Uma Bharati being brought into the UP campaign. Arun Jaitley & Co. have scorned Uma Bharati right from her days as Central minister and Madhya Pradesh chief minister. Her rustic ways do not fit their slick city styles.
But Uma Bharati can be a huge political mover. She doomed the Congress in Madhya Pradesh. Her problem is that the campaign is being pulled in other directions by other UP BJP heavyweights, including Rajnath Singh and Kalraj Mishra. Objectively speaking, neither Rajnath Singh nor Kalraj Mishra is a match for Uma Bharati, who is hungry to prove her worth to the BJP. If Mayawati has a worth contender, it is Uma Bharati. But the BJP in UP is a case of "Too many cooks...."
At one level, you would think both the BJP and Congress are reconciled to defeats in Uttar Pradesh, and are content to compete for the third and fourth spots. If that is so, it is sad. The backwardness of the so-called cow belt but particularly UP partly drags India down. If either of the two national parties had a spell of power in UP, it would do the state and the country good.
And only Uttar Pradesh has the singular capacity to end the interminable cycle of weak and visionless coalition rule at the Centre.
N.V.Subramanian is Editor, www.NewsInsight.net, and writes internationally on strategic affairs. He has authored two novels, University of Love (Writers Workshop, Calcutta) and Courtesan of Storms (Har-Anand, Delhi). Email: envysub@gmail.com.

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